Double Helix
by Marlowe97
Summary: Rose and her Doctor have 'The Talk'. (Follows more or less "Martha" in terms of time-lines but stands alone. Set in the same verse as my other stories)


_Alright, just to say it up front: this is NOT going to be a happy coo-y 'Rose is pregnant'-fic. If you like those, don't be disappointed. It is also not sad or anything, because everyone involved is very okay with the situation._  
_It's mostly my personal answer to and my personal experience with the fact that really - not everyone can have kids and not everyone WANTS kids. They can still be happy! _

_So. Have fun and if you liked it, don't mind telling me so ;-)_

* * *

Rose stood with her big, Tardis-blue mug in the little break-kitchen of her floor at Torchwood, waiting for the coffee-machine to finally filter her precious wake-up-habit when Ellen from accounting, Mary and Gillian entered, already chattering and chittering like they usually did during their break. _'So much for quiet time,'_ Rose thought morosely and wished the coffee-maker to hurry up.

"Ohh, I'm so happy for you, Ellen!" Mary hopped up and down on her toes, clapping her hands in joy. It was frightening to see her so bouncy – she was known for a razor-sharp tongue and occasional bouts of nasty temper, usually every Wednesday when the weekly reports were due and she had to translate the illegible scribble of Bernhard Hoffner, who believed that because of his seniority he could handwrite it and let Mary figure out what he was saying. Sadly, he wasn't far off. He only had seven more months until retirement, and the bosses had decided it wasn't worth the hassle to make him use his pad. "How far along are you?"

"Thirteen weeks," Ellen said, stroking her belly fondly. "I've never thought he'd want a child, but Max is beside himself. Look what he bought yesterday!" At that, she pulled out her phone and showed off the pictures of whatever it was her husband – or... was she actually married? Rose thought she was quite well-informed about weddings and wedding-plans and wedding-present-collections, and she didn't remember anything for Ellen. Partner, then. Anyway, she showed her friends a picture on the phone. From the cooing and heart-shaped pupils Rose could see from her spot at the counter, it met with approval.

Ellen was quite young, Rose though while she sniffed the milk cautiously. Might even be younger than her, though it was hard to judge people's ages when your own life is so out of synch that you don't even know how many birthdays you actually had. But anyway, Ellen couldn't be older than twenty-five. _'Is that the appropriate age for having a child?'_ Rose poured milk in the coffee and made her way out of the kitchenette, back to her desk. Her mother had had Rose with barely twenty... surely that was too young, wasn't it? Rose remembered twenty, more so she remembered nineteen and even if she hadn't met the Doctor, she wouldn't have felt old enough to be a mother at that age. Barely old enough to drive, really. Tony had come when her mom had been over forty, and people – though not the gynaecologist, Jackie had pointed out quite emphatically – kept saying that was too old. Well, less saying and more subtly hinting. You didn't _say_ to Jackie Tyler that she was too old. For anything.

So, what did that mean? It would put the appropriate age for motherhood somewhere between twenty and thirty-nine.

Well. That should give Rose plenty of time, if she wanted to have a child, right? She was twenty-four, so no problem with waiting. Her life didn't really seem all that good for a child, what with fighting aliens, discovering alien tech and sometimes getting in the way of said alien tech and now the re-awakened opportunity to time-travel and all. Sure, so far they'd only just bounced around the past a bit, saw the Beatles and the Stones – because the Doctor insisted that you had to see both, and it had been tremendous fun – and of course Led Zeppelin and Freddy Mercury with his band Queer. Basically, tourist stuff. The Doctor had been very restrictive with his targets and while Rose thought it was quite wise that he kept a firm lid on things and was taking it slow and careful and only Earth-bound so far, it rankled. Bloody hell, she'd jumped universes through a bloody _cannon_! She wanted to see more, do more, _run_!

But yes, fine. He was probably right. Rose slumped into her desk-chair and sighed. Still. Very strange to have him be the voice of reason when the other Doctor, the original, had always been the most careless of them. Well. Maybe he'd come to his senses. He probably had a good reason for his caution.

Would traveling through time affect a pregnancy? She'd have to ask.

* * *

She did ask, that evening after they'd eaten a bowl of chicken-curry while watching 'How I met your father'.

They were leaning against the couch's backrest, half hanging off the cushions because the curry had been bloody fantastic and very, very filling. The Doctor turned his head without removing it from the backrest. "What?"

"Well, I thought, what with the vortex and the void-stuff... maybe it could... I don't know. Do something to the child? I mean, like with flying? All the radiation, supposedly?" Rose didn't want to move, either, but she glanced up to see his face.

He ran his hand through his hair, looking delightfully and delectably dishevelled. Oh – nice alliteration there. "Uh, I... I don't think it does, but I have to say that there's no… The manipulator isn't exactly a gentle form of travel, though, so… But even with a Tardis, I wouldn't know, to be honest." He looked a bit affronted that there was something he didn't know.

"Really? No pregnant Time Lord lady ever travelled in a Tardis? Were they banned from time travel or something?"

Usually, talking about his planet left the Doctor looking pained or determinedly stoic, but the deep ache he used to sport had been getting less severe. Possibly, as he claimed, because he wasn't the actual Doctor who'd actually lost his people but someone who only remembered them as being there, not remembering them in the sense of really meeting them.

Rose dismissed that thought quickly, though. She knew he felt all the things his origin-Doctor had felt before _her_ Doctor was created. Actually, she'd gone to the mats about it with her father once, after the regularly occurring loud debates between Peter Tyler, executive-director of Torchwood and the Doctor, consultant and technical engineer. 'Discussions', Pete called them, 'differences in opinion' the Doctor said. Rose and her mom both called them 'bloody big rows' and they stayed out of it. Picking sides would only lead to disaster and it wasn't required anyway – nor would it be welcome, Rose thought. Donna called it a 'strange male bonding-ritual' and that was probably entirely correct.

That night, Pete had thrown Rose's Doctor's origins and lack of understanding into the debate, and she'd seen how deep that one had cut. She'd stayed out of the confrontation but afterwards, she'd talked to her dad about it and made certain Pete understood that the two Doctors had been one and the same person until the moment of her Doctor's strange birth, and had only separated in consciousness afterwards. Therefore, he did quite clearly feel exactly the same and knew about everything that happened before his creation and had only later developed into someone who might feel and act differently than the Time Lord Doctor. She would allow that maybe as a human with parts of Donna mixed in, he might evaluate things in different ways than he would have as a Time Lord. But Rose didn't like anyone dismissing his emotions as second-hand and therefor 'less'. Neither Pete nor the Doctor were allowed to do that. Her mom had just one day decided that this Doctor was the Doctor and just accepted him as the new Doctor.

Her mom was bloody amazing sometimes.

"Uh… I wouldn't know. But Gallifreyans didn't get pregnant. Not as such. Well… to be honest, I think not at all. I'm sorry to say that I don't know if it was even biologically possible."

Now it was Rose's turn to blink and she sat up, turning sideways on the sofa to look at him directly. She wanted to ask for clarification, but what came out of her mouth was more like a questioning squeak.

He grinned, amused at her reaction, and pulled his legs up so he was sitting cross-legged. His bunny-face slippers stayed on the ground. "Ah, yes. You see, Time Lord culture is ... well, did I mention that they were practically the definition of 'stick up the arse'? Because that's what they were. Stickler for protocol – which, I give you, there's a reason what with controlling time and space and such. But even with that, they were _incredibly_ stiff and boring and saw physical intimacy as something ... well." He scrunched up his nose, searching for words. "Beneath them. Backwards. On a level with animals, really."

She stared, because... wow, that explained _so much_ of the original Doctor's reluctance to do more than enthusiastically hug her or kiss her now and then. It might also explain the enthusiasm this model had developed when it came to physical contact with her, bordering on actual _need_ to be touched whenever possible and his tendency to smother her in bed, clinging to her body like a limpet. Since Rose preferred space when sleeping and didn't like getting too warm, that habit had gotten over the cuteness-factor quite early on in their bed-sharing relationship.

They'd compromised. Rose had agreed to pre-sleep-cuddling every evening, which wasn't exactly a hardship for her, and he'd agreed to let her push him away if she felt constricted at night. She'd also bought him a really big teddy bear. Whether he did sleep clinging to it or not would stay their secret.

"I mean," he hurried to add "I mean, the Doctor... I – we had always been a bit of an outsider, and I – he – WE never ... I mean, I never understood why that was. Because it's not dirty or bad or anything, just... well. On Gallifrey, people just didn't. At least not in the time I was around. Maybe earlier. Well. Obviously earlier."

"You mean in all your stuttering… sex, right?" He nodded, blushing. Funny, considering that he very much liked sex and wasn't at all shy in bed. "So... how did you... you know. Reproduce?"

"Oh, easy," he said with a decisive nod, as if reproducing without contact, not to mention no actual sex was completely normal. "Genetic engineering. You know, get two DNA-donors, mix it up, then let the most promising mixture ripen and mature into an embryo, then into a foetus and eventually into a child."

Ah. Charming?

"And... they don't implant the foetus in the mother?" Rose couldn't really wrap her head around it. Sure, the concept was not unimaginable, but hadn't scientists already figured out that the time in the womb was very important to the development of a child, and not just in the physical sense? Then again, she had to remember that Time Lords only looked like humans. Clearly, the differences were bigger than she'd imagined.

On the other hand, not being born by an actual person might account for the stuffiness the Doctor had accused his species of.

"Oh, no." The Doctor, not privy to her thoughts, continued with scientific passion. "Born in Looms, that's what they call it. Called. When the foetuses reached the right age, they were taken out of the Looms, were born, basically, and nurses of all genders tended to them from then on. Most often it was five younglings for one group of nurses. The younglings get the best medical and psychological upbringing until they're old enough to be with their parents. It's quite ingenious, if you think about it. That way, you get the pure essence of a child and not have it interfered with by bad food, bad parents and nasty things like violence and abuse. Everyone's who they are deep inside, no outside influences to damage the internal character. When they're old enough, that's about eight, they went to the Academy or whatever else of a career was seemed appropriate."

"So, you're saying that the … Loom-caretakers?" He nodded. "- decided what you were going to do for the rest of your life when you were _eight_? Didn't humans try that one, too? I think I remember something about socialism…"

He smiled at her and nodded. "Oh, good thought! Yes, but of course it doesn't really work with humans. They're too… well." He pondered. "Quirky? They don't all show their possibilities in such young ages, and need more time to ripen. Then there is the much longer life-expectancy. On Gallifrey, you could have more than one occupation throughout your life. Most had at least three, except those that were really happy with their first choices. And the process of placing a youngling in their future place is very thorough and based on careful consideration of the character and the genetic sources and also the interest already shown at that age. They rarely made mistakes." She stared at him. "What?"

She kept staring and then had to laugh. "Really? No mistakes? I think I remember they thought you were a good match for the Academy and to become a good little Time Lordy who would follow the rules," she smirked.

"First," he held up his index-finger, "I said 'rarely'. Second… In the end, they weren't that wrong. Except for the rules-following, I guess. But imagine me as a carpenter!"

Now she laughed out loud and he giggled along with her. They were probably both thinking about the time he'd tried to fix their book-shelves.

"Sometimes," he went on, "a Time Lord couple would want to actually raise their children, in which case they were placed with their family at around three or four years old, or sometimes older."

They were now sitting across from each other and Rose could see his expressions. The topic was interesting and fascinating for her, but he seemed equally entranced in the explanations. Once more she was reminded that he only looked human.

"Did… uhm. Did your parents raise you?"

The Doctor smirked. "My 'parents' are the Doctor and Donna. So – no. quite obviously not." He winked at her, but continued when he saw her eyeroll. "The Doctor's gene-origins weren't interested. It had been a sort of retro-movement that popped up after he was born, that couples wanted to be involved in raising their offsprings again."

"Oh. He had children, didn't he?" Rose thought she remembered him saying something like that, once. After the question was out, she feared she'd stepped over a line. They very much never talked about the Doctor's family.

"Ah. Yes, he did." He swallowed. "They're not alive anymore. All gone."

She reached over and took his hand, stroking his knuckles. Knowing he'd killed his entire species because he'd seen no other way had been one thing. Realizing that he'd also, with that decision, chosen to kill his own _children_ was shattering. In a way, Rose was aware that she'd known it all along. But she'd never really put all the pieces of knowledge together until now and suddenly, the gentle hand-holding wasn't enough.

She untucked her legs and crawled over so she could properly hug him. He squeezed her back and took a deep breath. "Long time ago. To be honest, apart from always having their minds linked with mine – well, the Doctor's, obviously – we didn't have that much in common. The Doctor hadn't had much to do with their lives, and they didn't with his. Still. Knowing they're gone completely is absolutely not the same as not talking to them for centuries."

Rose continued to hug him because she didn't know what to say. What could you possibly say to that?

"I understand that it's a strange concept for you, the way reproduction was handled on Gallifrey. And nowadays, I'm not sure if our species didn't do itself a disservice when they dismantled family-relations and decided physical contact was more of a hindrance than an imperative. Watching human children grow up... well. If they didn't grow up in horrible places, the intimacy and safety a human child gets from the family-bond has always fascinated me. It makes them slower in development concerning the brain – surprisingly slow development, humans, considering the life-expectations, though when you think about it, the whole of Earth has long childhoods. Look at elephants, for example! But anyway, the emotional resilience human children have is remarkable! If you'd abandon Time Lord children in places like wartime Syria or have them witness a Cyberman-invasion, they wouldn't know how to handle it. They'd simply quiver themselves to death or wander into fire from sheer confusion and panic. The few Gallifreyans who'd been children during actual violent periods in our history had all been mentally unstable. Some had committed terrible crimes, tried to rewrite history or delete timelines, which was an offence punishable by death, by the way. A lot of them had simply refused to regenerate after they died and some had even chosen to die long before their time should have run out."

"They'd killed themselves?" Rose asked, aghast. It wasn't so unusual for humans. She wasn't naïve enough to believe nothing like that ever happened. But she'd only ever known one Time Lord, and if there'd been one thing he cherished, it had been – and was still – life. Rose had assumed it was something Time Lords had all in common, but maybe she'd been wrong.

"In a way. But not… well. They could choose their death, you know? Decide to just stop living. So yes, in a way they killed themselves, but it was more like…. Well." He scratched the side of his face, where the sideburns used to be. "More like stopping to live. If that makes sense." Rose nodded and he continued. "See, even with the worst upbringing, chances are good that humans can survive and even develop into functional beings! There are so many examples of great humans who'd come from terrible places, had endured horrific things before they'd reached maturity. Sadly, it comes from necessity – there's a lot of danger in a species as violent as yours. Well. Ours, now, I guess."

He frowned but peaked up again quickly. "Anyways! Humans are amazing when it comes to surviving horror, and it all comes from the way they are born." He smiled that proud smile of his again, the one every Doctor Rose had known wore whenever humanity caused astonishment. It never ceased to amaze her how much the Doctor loved her people and it enabled her to understand a little bit of his fascination. It usually led to a broader understanding of her own species and made her quite proud, too. She decided to look up a few of those humans he'd spoken of.

Still, not right now. "Well," she said, trying to shake off the gloominess that still lingered in her, even after they'd sat together for a while, just cuddling and staring at the telly without really watching. "So, no input on pregnant time-travel, huh?"

He rocked forward and back a little while thinking, and distractedly he spoke. "As far as I know, the Doctor is the only Time Lord who ever took humans with him on the Tardis. Not so sure about other species, to be honest. And I'm quite certain none of the travelling companions had been pregnant at the time." He focused back on her. "Can I ask why the sudden interest? Do you want to take someone with us who's pregnant?"

Rose thought many blokes would be a bit apprehensive when their girlfriends or wives talked about pregnancy all of a sudden, but the Doctor seemed merely curious. "Oh, no. No! Not. Just wondering. You know. If ... just if I ever ... you know. If that would mean I couldn't anymore."

She untangled herself so she could watch him better, but stayed pressed against his side for now. He might be the product of a Time Lord metacrisis, but that Time Lord was the Doctor and the other part of him was Donna Noble. He certainly needed physical contact, and so did Rose, with her 100% human DNA.

He frowned. "Are you trying to tell me that you would want to travel in time while pregnant?" Now he _did_ look a bit uncertain.

"Uh, well. I certainly wouldn't want to _not_ time-travel while pregnant." After all, chances were slim that she could do it after any possible child was born. Rose loved danger and peril and the thrill of the chase – in either direction – but even she was aware that it wasn't a good situation to bring a toddler. And she couldn't just leave her kid with her mom, as much as Jackie would probably love to raise them. Rose would take every chance she got until she was forced to stay at home.

The Doctor looked at the silent telly, still stuck on the channel they had watched before. "So… uhm. Do you… is that something you want? Children? Or, well. One? Child, that is?"

She frowned. "Isn't that what you're supposed to want?" It was, wasn't it? You get a bloke, find a job – not strictly necessary, though – married – also not necessary – and got pregnant and became a mother. At least that was what her life had been shaping up to until the Doctor. "So… yes? I guess?" Was it strange that she didn't sound certain?

He turned back to her with a grimace of a smile on his face. "Well." He sighed, rubbing his hand through his hair until it stood on end. "That... could be a problem." At her raised eyebrow, he tried to elaborate. "At least, if that pregnancy includes me. As in, being involved – which I would be, no matter what, of course! But I meant more in the – And I'm not sure if I'm even jumping to conclusions, because of course there could be many reasons for you to be pregnant – uhm… well, not that... not right _now_ I'm sure and I'm in no way insinuating – I wouldn't even dream of such a thing!" His eyes had turned rounder and bigger with every word, and Rose had to admire his ability to put his foot in his mouth in such precise succession. She left him hanging for a bit longer until she had to laugh.

"Calm down. Take a deep breath," Rose waited until he actually did so, "then let it out," waited again – it wouldn't be the first time he'd run into another ramble right afterwards if she didn't force him to slow down his brain. "Now. Explain what you mean and just assume that I won't be offended."

"Alright. Uh. So… What was the subject?"

Unbelievable. "Pregnancy? A problem with you being involved?"

"Oh. Oh! Yes! Ah. Well, see. The thing is, in any case, if you find yourself pregnant," Yes, because that's how it worked… you 'found yourself pregnant'. Rose rolled her eyes. "I promise I will be very supportive in any way possible. Whatever the circumstances. What I mean with 'problem', though, would be if you plan on being pregnant now. Uh. From me. As in us," he made hand-gestures, as if Rose wouldn't understand what he meant. "Together."

"Hang on. Are you telling me you're ... infertile?"

"What? No! Well. I just... While I'm not a Time Lord, and I have many human features now, and the body functions just like yours does – well, like Pete's does, I suppose, though I don't know precisely because I haven't done that many tests yet m – anyway, my DNA is still very different from human DNA. The meiosis-process can't work because my DNA has more strands than yours. Humans have a two-strand DNA, and Time Lords have four strands, and I've got this completely ridiculous thing that has sometimes four, sometimes three and sometimes two strands. It just … melts together in some places to form one single strand where there were two before. But that's all over the place, all over my cells, not… not in any kind of order." He took a deep breath, tried to judge if she was on the page. So far, so good. Rose remembered enough about biology-lessons to follow – it had been one of the few subjects she'd actually liked.

"Well," the Doctor continued, "and of course, our nucleobases are very different. Your double-helix DNA – such a thing of beauty, by the way, truly marvellous – has four base-pairs. Five, if you count Uracil from the RNA but that's not really important right now. Though of course it's such amazing thing to have it, to have a different base just for the RNA! Ah, anyway. Time Lords have eight. And only two of those match human bases – Adenine and Cytosine, in case you're interested. The other six are completely foreign to human cells and they don't transcribe into the same kind of amino-acids. There are similarities, of course, but still something entirely different. It would be like trying to mate a rhinoceros with a crocodile. And don't even ask me what my body is made of – it's completely bonkers." He shook his head, a little in wonder and a bit in irritation over his unseemly existence.

Rose rubbed her face. "You're telling me your DNA is not compatible with mine, right?" He nodded, smiling but a little insecure with a pinch of apology. "Would they fit with a Time Lord?"

He contemplated, then shrugged. "I don't think so. But if they still existed, they might make some interesting gene-cocktail from it. Though I doubt they would even want to – I'm clearly the inferior model, and that would go against all their carefully crafted unnatural selection."

"So what you're telling me," Rose tried to keep him on track even though she didn't think him inferior at all, "is that you are, in practical terms, infertile. We two don't fit, Time Lords don't fit… what would that leave?"

He considered. "Oh. Well. Theoretically, there might be a species out there in the world which might have a similar enough DNA, but yes, you're absolutely correct. Nobody else. I'm unique." He grinned and Rose chortled at his beaming pride.

Of course he would feel that as some kind of accomplishment. Even though it made him very alone in the world. She frowned, hoping he hadn't caught on. "Well, either way, you're telling me I can't get pregnant from you, right?"

Suddenly, he seemed a bit apprehensive. "Is… Is that a problem?"

"A problem? Well – I would have quite liked to know in advance!"

"What?" He stared at her. "Really? You wanted a lecture in biology before the two of us had sex? And when exactly would you have wanted to put that in? Before the undressing or after?"

Rose giggled. "No, you git. I mean I would have liked to know that at all. Could have mentioned it any time between today and the first time we had sex."

"You never said anything about children! How was I supposed to know you wanted any?"

"I never said I wanted them!"

Puzzled, he swiped at his neck. "Ah. Now you've lost me. I thought that that is the point of this argument?"

Rose consciously lowered her voice, which had, apparently, risen in volume somewhere in the last sentences. "Sorry, sorry. This isn't really an argument. I never said I want children. I was just asking for information."

"So… you don't want children?"

Again, she sighed. "I… not right now, I don't. Can't imagine me as a mom. Can you?" He wagged his head a little, then shook it while wrinkling his nose. Rather vehemently, for which Rose was in equal amounts grateful and insulted. She decided to let it go when she realized that her reaction to _him_ being a father of their together-child would be similar. His behaviour with Tony was more suspicious than overly fatherly, and his earlier family-life didn't sound like much of a template. "Yeah. Same here. I just… as I said, it's something others seem to expect of women in relationships in a certain age-span."

"And … you think you've hit that span now?"

"No. Yes? Well… so many women around me seem to think so. They always ask me when I will settle down and when I'm planning on having a family. And today I met the sixth - _sixth_! – woman from work who's pregnant! It's like it's contagious or something." Rose felt herself pout and tried to stop it. She always looked ridiculous while pouting.

"First of all, that's quite normal. In times after disasters, humans – but also most mammals and I think actually most species all across evolution – tend to increase their birth-rates in noticeable levels. It's a biological reaction to vast loss of life in a population. The other thing – which is more important – is this question." He leaned back to look at her, straight into her eyes and into her soul. "When have you ever cared what other people thought your life should be like? The Rose Tyler I know didn't do simple pondering to societies rules, nor anyone's rules, and I'm certain that Rose Tyler is the same as the one sitting here, in front of me." His smile could melt the polar-caps, this Rose Tyler thought. Could melt all the ice on this planet, and on Mars right along. "So if you don't want to have children, don't let anyone bully you into having them. I'm quite sure everyone involved would be happier if you didn't give birth to a child you don't actually want." His hand went to her face and gently swiped her skin from the corner of her eye to the bottom of her lower jaw. He did it twice, all the while smiling with so much love and compassion that Rose was certain he could have simply willed her socks off if he'd wanted to. Or other, more interesting pieces of clothing.

"But," he carried on, "if one day you decide you do want a real family… well. I'm sure there are ways to make that happen."

Rose nodded and kissed his palm. He was right. There was no rush. Her mom had been over forty, and maybe at that age, Rose would feel the need to reproduce. Right now, that need was buried very deep and she felt a huge boulder drop from her heart upon realizing that she didn't _need_ to have children. Nor did she have to decide now if she would want them in the future. It didn't define her as a person to be a mother, after all. And being a time-travelling, Earth-saving alien-chaser with a super-smart, slightly vain and sometimes distractingly arrogant half-alien impossibility by her side was quite a big thing already.

It was a relief. With a content sigh, Rose snuggled against his warm body and reached for the remote only to stop halfway. "Wait. If we're not compatible, why am I still taking the pill?"

"The what?" He looked puzzled.

"The pill! The tiny one I'm taking every day? You've seen it in the bathroom!"

"Uhm?"

"The contraceptive, you git!" She poked his side until he squirmed. "Why didn't you tell me it's unnecessary a year ago?"

"Wellllll…." He blushed and it was adorable and Rose hadn't been angry anyway so she kissed his nose. "I would have done that if I had known what it was." He continued, low, nearly mumbling, "thought it was vitamins."

'Aliens,' Rose thought, shaking her head as she switched to the Nature Chanel. 'Not sure they're worth the trouble.'

But of course, this one was.


End file.
